


Dear Lover

by Howling_Harpy



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Closeted Character, Established Relationship, Love Letters, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 00:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20898620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling_Harpy/pseuds/Howling_Harpy
Summary: A group of friends who supervice soldiers' mail are secretly very invested in one Major Winters' letters to a woman he seems to be having a secret affair with.





	Dear Lover

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first BoB fanfic I wrote ages ago. I'm still very fond of it, and not the least because of the format. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a piece of fiction based on the HBO drama series and the actors’ portrayals in it. This has nothing to do with any real person represented in the series, and means no disrespect.

It felt slightly immoral and definitely boring to be assigned to oversee mail while there was a war on. One certain military mail censor had had high hopes to serve his country, to join the fight in the lead of the UN among other brave men of the United States of America, but because of various reasons – perhaps not least because of his own laziness – had ended up reading and sometimes censoring mail leaving Fort Benning. 

In training they had drilled into them that every job was valuable, that every single post had to be filled so they could succeed and thus they were equally important, and as supervisors of mail they were helping tactics and intelligence in preventing information leaks, as well as upholding the morale on the homefront by not letting the worst of military life get to them.

But no matter how you spun it into fancy words, it was still mundane, and other personnel certainly didn’t see the paper-pushers from intelligence and communication like that. Tony had to just suck it up, accept it, and carry on.

But there were upsides to the job, and one that was a well-kept secret among the mail censors was the joy of snooping. They didn’t discuss any of it outside their own circles, and for the most part they didn’t care about the long-winded regards to Private Nobody’s mother or the bragging to wives and girlfriends, but every now and then there were juicy cases worth enjoying.

The absolute favourite of Tony and his circle of friends’ at the office was the case of one Major on the camp. 

Apparently the Major was a decorated veteran and sort of a legend among paratroopers. He had a reputation, and anyone who had met him vouched for it: he was a man who commanded, a man who made you stand up straighter and give it your all, a presence to be valued in training. Anyone would also vouch that the Major was a proper gentleman, a teetotaller, God-fearing man, as straight-laced as they came, there was no question about it.

Which was why it was so exciting that the Major had so much correspondence. He wrote monthly letters to several friends, and from the contents they quickly deducted that they were war buddies – one of whom was currently in the service as well – but one person who got several letters a week and wrote back just as often was a woman.

The Major must have been aware of the censors who went through his mail, but that didn’t stop him from writing lengthy, tender letters that could only be labelled love letters. 

But the catch was, the Major was not married. He was not writing to his wife, but a woman whom he never referred to by her last name, and whose address was just a mailbox in New Jersey. The most prominent theory at the office was that the Major was having a scandalous affair with a married woman.

*  
_My dearest Louise, _

_nothing much has happened since my last letter. Army life continues to be both the same and very different from how I remember it. Or perhaps I have changed, after all I have been through this before and I’m not the young eager man I used to be, emphasis on young. I couldn’t run Currahee anymore, and I confess some amount of grief over that. Imagine that, it used to pain me so as it did all of us, but now that I realize it’s not mine to do anymore, I miss it. _

_But most of all I think of you, my dear Louise. I imagine you here with me all the time, in every part of my day, and wonder what you’d have to say about this all. I’m sure you’d have something witty and cutting to say about everything, and some people around here could definitely use some lightening up! Again, I wonder if it’s just me being old and solemn or if it’s the oak leaves that are intimidating our young recruits… Actually, that might be it, I choose to believe that’s it, as I am a man in my prime. Ah, I wrote that but in my head it sounded like your voice._

_This is how low you have brought me, this is how much I miss you: I keep trying to mimic your wit just to ease the pain of missing you. I may be going a little crazy here, but I took a pass this weekend and I could have sworn I saw you at least a dozen times. I must have been poor company because I kept glancing around, thinking I saw you from the corner of my eye, and then all I could think of was how I’d walk up to you and ask you to dance, and you’d give me that smirk of yours that promises trouble, and then I’d hold you close and we’d dance all night. No one else would get a turn with you, only me. No one would know us, and so we could just sway to the music and forget about everything. I’m even wearing my uniform again, so it would make up for the time we missed before._

_That was my Saturday night. Out socializing and dreaming about you. It’s strange to be back at camp and have weekend passes. I hate to tell you, but I told the drill instructors in my battalion to revoke several passes to get extra training time. Turns out many things that felt unfair back then are actually useful. I feel like I have reached a sort of military adulthood._

_Other than this there’s not much to tell. Trust me, I want to tell you everything so it would feel like you were here with me, but this will have to do. I think of you every day. You’re the first thought in my head every morning, you’re the last thought in my head every night, and when I sleep I’m sure I dream of you even if I don’t remember it. I anxiously wait for your next letter. _

_Faithfully yours,  
Major Dick Winters _

_*_

_Dear Dick,_

_oh my heart flutters and my delicate hand trembles as I write this! My dearest love, where ever art thou, think of me! There, is that lady-like enough? Or should I read more Emily Bronte? Maybe I have a future in theatre, even. What do you think?_

_Perhaps both of us have to admit that youth is behind us. I still like you the same, though. Every time I get a letter from you it’s the best thing of the day, possibly the entire week. Probably the best thing since your last letter, and the best thing until the next one. I already miss you so much when we’re apart, but now that you’re back in the army it feels like you are somehow even farther away. Even though yes, you look so handsome in your uniform, and yes, I do love it when you wear it. ‘It’, I wrote, as if you didn’t look handsome in all of them. I know ladies generally love the dress greens – and for a good reason, you handsome devil – but I would have you in anything. Your O.D.s and muddy jumpboots are just as dashing on you as your finest dress greens. Sometimes I even think that your harness exists only for me to get a good hold of you and never let go! I wish I hadn’t._

_This letter-writing thing is not my forte, I admit that much, but damn if it isn’t easier to write this down than say it straight to you. Or maybe it is just that I miss you so much that it’s made me stupid. There’s really no telling, but here I am, having told you in this one letter that I miss you multiple times. I miss you. There, one more. _

_Everyday life of the army isn’t very exciting, I know. But don’t you worry, neither is mine. I still work as I used to, it’s the same, mildly despair-inducing but tolerable. It would seem that you are the best thing in my life and being apart like this has taken all the color out._

_But worry not, write all the boring things you want! I read it all eagerly, everything from your dealings with the recruits and fellow officers to your weekend adventures. I want to know where you are and what’s going on with you. It brings me comfort, like you might be far away but you’re still real. You exist, and you think of me as much as I think of you, somewhere far away. _

_I dream of you too, and I can’t even begin to tell you how I smiled at your daydreams about dancing. I imagined leaning on you and resting my head on your shoulder. No one would have to doubt what we are to each other._

_All the best,  
your Lou _

_*_

_My dearest Louise, _

_you have always been very lady-like with your fine education, good manners and absolutely admirably proper behaviour. I often wonder what someone so delicate and serene as you sees in a rowdy country boy who turned into a gruff army man such as myself. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves with a theatre career, though._

_My bunk is very narrow and lonely. I know we didn’t get the chance to sleep next to each other that often in the first place, but somehow I miss even those rare times and wish they would be every night. Some married people here are so lucky and they don’t even realize it. On some mornings here I reach over for you only for my arm to slip over the edge of my bunk and meet air. As thick as I feel in those moments, waking up without knowing where I am and feeling so sentimental, I realize that you belong there. I must have felt like that before, but now I truly know it. I hope you won’t mind me telling you that, considering our circumstances. _

_I continue training the troops. Their PT is not as harsh as ours was, but still demanding. Results are good as well, I am pleased to tell, and again I wonder both about youth and army. The transformation is so dramatic and fast! I keep thinking that it wasn’t like that for us, but maybe we just didn’t realize it back then, the same way these boys don’t realize it about themselves now. Life is curious, my dearest. _

_Some of my fellow officers have noted my unmarried status, and it’s caused some open confusion at the mess hall. I haven’t minded the wondering of strangers about it before, but somehow being back here it really hit me: I am something of a curiosity. I wish I had some of your mischief, that way I would have an easy explanation at hand and I could put a stop to the questions once and for all, but I am who and what I am: an ordinary, proper man, who has failed to find a wife. Everyone thinks it’s odd, especially since they can’t point out what’s wrong with me. The CO of one of the companies said that just yesterday, during lunch: “But why, Winters? There’s nothing wrong with you!” _

_I just shrugged and gave them that look you’ve said I sometimes do, but really I wanted to tell them about you. I wanted to take out a photograph of you and tell them all, “this is my Lou.” I didn’t, as it wouldn’t have been smart, and I don’t even have a picture of you, but I wanted to. _

_That’s all for this week. Thinking of you, missing you, waiting to hear from you soon._  
Faithfully yours,  
Major Dick Winters 

*

The small group of them was lingering by the coffee maker, pondering the matter. It had been months of rapid correspondence between Major Winters and the mystery lady Louise, and it was the talk of the office. They knew they were ordered to keep a tight lid on things and dutifully they didn’t breathe a word to anyone, but amongst themselves they just had to whisper about it.

“It’s so romantic,” sighed Mandy as she stirred her coffee.

“Sounds like an affair to me,” countered Emma, slightly scolding. She was just as invested as everyone else and read the letters with equal interest, but forced herself to feel bad about it afterwards and judge the probably indecent romance a bit. 

“It might be, or maybe there’s something else that keeps them apart. We don’t know. And even if it were an affair, Louise must be trapped in an unhappy marriage. She clearly loves the Major, purely and passionately,” Mandy mused and sighed again. 

Roger pondered it as well. He secretly enjoyed the real-life romance he was peeking at, but mostly wanted to know the truth about it. “Louise might be black,” he pointed out.

“A black woman with lady-like manners and good education?” Mandy remarked, pointing at him with her spoon. “More like she’s some rich socialite who was set to marry a family friend’s son, and now she can’t be with her one true love. Major is from the country, after all.”

Roger chuckled. “One true love, huh? What is this, a movie?”

“Well they _are_ clearly in love,” Emma said, sounding strangely wounded at even the slightest implication that that wasn’t the case, “and something’s keeping them apart. That much is certain from the letters.”

“I wonder how they met in the first place, since they are so different,” Tony said.

Mandy gasped. “I’m sure it’s a war time romance! She must have been a nurse or a secretary or something, and they ran into each other when they were in the European theatre! Perhaps he was wounded, and she took care of him and they both just knew they were meant to be.”

“Now that’s a movie for sure,” Tony chuckled, and others joined him. “But Louise works. She said so herself. If she were a married rich socialite, she wouldn’t work.” 

Somehow the notion had been forgotten and it gave them all a pause. The rich unattainable girl and the salt of the earth true love was their best theory, but the job certainly put a wrinkle in it. They stirred and drank their coffee in contemplative silence, adjusting their thinking after this tilting notion.

“There must be something they haven’t yet mentioned,” Emma said, surprising everyone by speaking first. “Something… Something more concrete that’s keeping them apart. Perhaps… Family? Some sort of duty? Or maybe they aren’t kept apart by money, but the lack of it.” 

Mandy was quick to jump aboard, her big brown eyes shining with emotion. “Yes! There is definitely something like that! Stars-crossed lovers…” She put more sugar in her coffee and sighed. 

*__

_Dear Dick,_

_I am pleased to announce to you that today marks my one-year anniversary in sobriety. I have to say, I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I wish I could look back through time and see what my one-day-sober self looked like, but even without that I can tell she looked and felt like she’d been hit by a train. The today-me is much better. I like waking up without a hangover and then just going about my day without planning it around refills of my flask or hitting one of my stash bottles. I dare even say that I’ve lost weight, and my face isn’t puffy at all. _

_I celebrated with my sister, and I’m writing this letter on a train back from Chicago. She asked about you, but I told her you’re somewhere in service and that we don’t keep that much in touch, so we weren’t really a topic of the day. Other than that inquiry, we had a good time in the city. We went shopping together, met some friends and then went to have a celebratory dinner for my one year. It was a fun day, and even I feel very optimistic about my future._

_I couldn’t have done this without you. And I know I had to pull myself up and that it was me, but let’s not pretend it was all me. You made it possible with your support and how you shook me awake from that haze, how you made me realize what I was doing to myself, and by extension, to you. To us. So thank you, my dearest friend! I toasted with Coke, and I hope you’ll toast too with your plain canteen water when you get the chance. _

_But not only celebration, this is also a time for reflection. I reflected on what kind of a person I am, and especially on what kind of a friend I have been to you, and especially-especially compared to what kind of a friend you have been to me. I was thinking about your last letter too, and despite the cheery mood of today, I am a bit sad._

_You are so wonderful. You are my dearest, most beloved, most cherished friend, and you have been nothing but kind and good and loving to me, and I don’t deserve you. Not that I could have you, even if I did deserve you, and this pains me. I’m thinking about all those wonderful things you have given me, all these irreplaceable things you keep wasting on me: time, your life, your love, your future, and I am in pain, love._

_Have I given you anything of that value? Am I the thing that’s wrong with you? _

_I am almost certain that I am, but you also know how selfish I am, and I don’t want to let go of you. I love you too much, and I wish I could swear that my love is real and true and pure, but I’m not so sure. On the contrary, I know this is wrong. And still, if I could have anything in the world, I would wish to be really and truly yours. Properly. In every way. In the eyes of God and man alike._

_This was supposed to be a happy letter. Hah, I think my pen got away from me and made me pour this on the page. Sorry about that, love. It seems that I don’t need alcohol to get melancholic. Lucky you, huh? _

_I still wish to hear back from you._

_All the best, kindly,  
Lou _

_*_

_My dearest Lou,_

_let me start this letter by congratulating you on your one year sober! I can’t even fully express in words how happy I am for you and how much I admire your fighting spirit. You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. _

_I admire you. I think I don’t tell you that often enough. You are a wonderful, silly creature, and you are also strong, fearless and probably the smartest person I have ever met. Every day since I met you I’ve felt happiness and gratitude for our friendship. Did you know that I’ve thanked God on several occasions for bringing us together? You deserve to know that, because it’s true. _

_You are not ‘’a thing that’s wrong’’. You are not taking anything from me, and we are not a sin. You are what’s right. You are the most cherished and most beloved to me too. I feel the same, and it’s so warm and good and lifts me up in such a way that I can fully assure you that we’re not wrong. What we have cannot be anything but good and right, because it simply feels too good and right to be anything but. _

_And let’s not pretend that I’ve been just purely good for you. You have been there for me at least as often as I have been there for you, and I’m not perfect. I want you to know that I appreciate how you’ve stuck with me through all of this. Through this hiding, through my hesitation about us, through my seriousness and distance and rigid work ethic and stupid habits, and now through my service. This is not even mentioning the wounds the war left on me. You got me through that as well and continue to do so, and don’t you ever forget that you did. Reading your doubts from your last letter pained me, and not only because I can’t take you in my arms and hold you until it’s all better, but because I never told you these things. You’ve stuck with such a quiet man such as myself, and maybe it’s just that I never seem to find the right words and that I’m sometimes still shy like a schoolboy around you, but I’m ashamed that it took me this long and this separation to properly express my feelings. _

_Lou, you make me laugh. You brighten each of my days, and you always remind me of the funny side of life. Your smiles are gifts. You are witty and smart and you always know what is important and deserves time and what doesn’t. You help me take it easy and remember that not everything in life is so serious, and you make me a better man. I want to be a better man, for you._

_I love you, Lou. I really, truly love you and only you, and I don’t want to stop loving you, ever. And just like you said I indeed am lucky that you are a bit sweet on me as well. I might not be able to swear an oath on that before God and men, but I can swear it to you: You are the only one for me, and I am yours. _

_You are not taking any bright future from me, because that’s you. There’s never going to be anyone but you, Lou. When the army releases me, I will return to you and this time I will stay. _

_Faithfully and forever yours, lovingly,   
Dick _

*

The latest letter was a hard one to read and send off. It did a round through all four of them, each taking a long time reading it through. It was getting increasingly hard for all of them to read the letters with their very clearly private and shamelessly open tender feelings, not to mention the absolute lack of anything that would even warrant the attention of censors. The letters were something beautiful and tender meant to be shared only between these two people, and they were intruding on it.

Tony tried to justify it to himself by the nature of the army’s system. Major Winters was an officer and a veteran, and he must have known the letters not only might but probably would be read by an outsider party, and so Tony and his friends weren’t doing anything all parties involved hadn’t accepted. But still, as Mandy had pointed out, both Major and his Louise still chose to write all those delicate, private things, perhaps not because they were willing to share them but because they couldn’t help themselves. 

“That’s just true love, plain and simple,” Mandy sighed one afternoon on their coffee break. “I wonder if she’s going to reply soon. Maybe they’ll finally get married.”

Even Roger had been taken aback by the two latest letters, especially the Major’s, and he wasn’t needling the others of the friend group about their sentimentality, though some realistic pragmatic side of him prevailed. “They can’t get married, for whatever reason,” he reminded them. “I think that much is clear. They might want to, but they seem to both agree that they are unable to get married. I don’t know about you three, but my theory still prevails: Louise is probably black.” 

“Roger… C’mon,” Mandy resisted. She was sticking with her original stance on the matter, weeks later, but seemingly only out of pride. 

Emma didn’t let any of that fly: “She might be! She’s not the picture-perfect sighing princess you want her to be.” Emma, who had from the beginning been the most reluctant about both reading the letters and spying on the romance, had ended up in a rather strange position since the letter that had revealed Louise’s past as a heavy drinker. She seemed both triumphant in a morally superior way now that the perfect pining maiden Louise had revealed such an uncouth flaw, but simultaneously she seemed to secretly root for this flawed Louise more than she ever had for the perfect Louise.

Mandy sighed then, deep and defeated. “Well… Yeah. None of us knows who she really is or what she’s like. But…” She drifted off, rather dreamily.

Roger, impatient and intolerant of such aloof behaviour, hurried her: “But, what?” 

Mandy jumped a little, shaken from her daydream, and then coyly refused to look anywhere but into her coffee. “But they seem so genuinely in love, is all. I can’t help but…” she fidgeted, took a sip of coffee and still refused to look at anyone. “I can’t help but hope that they get to be happy together, whoever they may be.” 

No one dared to agree, but no one argued either. A strange air of silent yet reluctant agreement settled over the group around the coffee maker, and all four knew they’d never breathe a word about this to any other living soul – at least not in a long while. 

Tony didn’t know what to think about any of it, but weirdly came to the conclusion that he agreed with Mandy. He didn’t know Major Winters and he knew Louise even less, having never even set eyes on the woman, and he didn’t really know their story all that well. All he had were these letters from the past year and his own interpretation based on bits and pieces of information he had gathered from them.

And still, he found himself rooting for them, even though he logically could see there was something suspicious about them. They simply couldn’t be your perfect couple. They weren’t married and seemed to be outright unable to do so, and as such they were in a situation that would definitely be frowned upon in polite society. Tony found himself thinking back to the first letter he had read and his theory about an affair and forcing himself to consider it now he realized that it might be the case on top of other circumstances. Still, he found himself with Mandy on the subject: their relationship sounded so painful. He hoped they would find a way to be happy together. 

But after that, only two more letters were exchanged before the Major was discharged.

*__

_Dear Dick,_

_Wherever you will go after, take me with you. Just get here and take me away._

_With love,  
your Lou_

_*_

_My dearest Lou,_

_I will._

_Forever yours,  
Dick_

*

That was the last time Tony or anyone of his friends heard from Major Winters or his Louise, that they remember. The whole affair was set aside soon enough, and later it turned into a rose-tinted silly story told vaguely at parties, with details and names long forgotten, and after a few decades the four friends all told widely different stories of the event.

Naturally, Tony never saw those letters again after they had left his hands. Not until over forty years later, in the late nineties, when he picked up a rather controversial memoir that was dedicated to “my dearest Lewis”.


End file.
